Making Up Words with Shakespeare

According to Jacqueline Morley in William Shakespeare: A Very Peculiar History, Shakespeare probably made up about 1,700 new words.

Here are some of them: assassination, courtship, outbreak, fashionable, and exposure.

And a few that didn't make it: insultment, unbuild, and exsufflicate (which means puffed up--whew, glad that one didn't catch on). 

If the greatest writer in the English language could make up new words, why can't we?

Get out a piece of paper--any old kind where you can make a big mess and scratch out words. 

Next, find a dictionary--a paper dictionary works best for this. 

Open the dictionary, stick out your finger, and randomly choose three words. I picked: 

fugleman: a leader

campus: the grounds of a school

louver: a slatted, ventilated opening

Now it's time to create our very own word. Choose one syllable from each word to create a brand new one, along with its meaning:

fugcamer: a camera that works especially well in bad weather 

puslouman: a person who works in a hospital

leloupus: a French pastry

You try! We may not be the next William Shakespeares (or maybe we are), but we can have fun adding our own words to the English language. 

Mancamlou! That's "Yellow Pencils" talk for good-bye! 

Fun with Games

When the power goes out and there's no computer, TV, or video games, that's the time to pull out a board game. But why wait for the power to go out? And why pull out a real board game? We can use our imaginations and make up our own games, with a little borrowing from the real thing. 

Have you ever played Monopoly? How about Hogopoly, where all the pieces are pigs? You get to create the characters and name them.

Chess? How about Mess? It's like chess, with kings, queens, rooks, bishops, knights, and pawns--but you decide the rules and mess things up. 

Scrabble? How about Scramble? After a player puts his letters on the board, the next player scrambles them to create a made-up word. 

Trivial Pursuit? How about Life-and-Death Pursuit? Your answers to a series of trivia questions can mean that you live or die (in the world of the game, of course).

Try inventing your own game. Come up with a fun name, write down the rules, and create a game board and pieces with paper, cardboard, markers, or other material--or even on the computer once the power comes back on!  

Baby Animals

Baby ducks are ducklings.

Baby geese are goslings.

And baby humans are...babies.

How many names can you think of for baby animals? A baby cat is a kitten. A baby dog is a puppy. A baby eagle is an eaglet. A baby frog is a tadpole. A baby fox, bear, wolf, or lion is a cub.

How about some lesser known babies? A baby lizard is a hatchling. A baby snake is a snakelet. A baby shark is a pup. A baby elephant is a calf.

For a fun word game, make a list of as many baby animal names as you can find. Or make up your own names. A baby crow? How about a crowlet? A crowling? A crowten?

Let your imagination soar as high as a baby seagull. Would that be a seaglet?

The License Plate Game

I'm going on a trip next week. I'm flying to Boston, and then driving to Vermont with a friend. Thinking about driving reminds me of cars, which reminds me of license plates, which reminds me of the License Plate Game. It's a great game for writers!

Even if you're not going on a trip this summer, you can see license plates almost anywhere. Here's how the game works.

Find five license plates that include letters. Then make a phrase out of the letters.

For example:

SFA = Stop Feeding Aliens

MLH = Monsters Live Here

DSOM = Don't Step on Marvin

LL = Lizard Landing

UNH = Unicorns Need Help

For extra fun, use one of your phrases as a story title, and then write a story about aliens, monsters, Marvin, lizards, or unicorns. See how creative you can be, all because of the humble license plate.

The Translation Game

Q B X M P C Y D A H U K S E Z N L T W O V F G

I J R

Here's a word game I learned from Nancy Lewars. It's a great game for summer, because you can play it outside while the weather's warm and sunny.

Three people sit in a row. The person in the middle is the Translator. The first person says something to the Translator in a made-up language (gibberish). The second person, or Translator, "translates" that to the third person in English. The third person answers the Translator in another made-up language (gibberish). The Translator then "translates" that back to the first person.

Sound complicated? It isn't. Here's an example:

First person: "Eee-ee ha la, moo hani la?"

Translator: "Why are you wearing a wool coat in June?"

Third person: "Sher trekk ponter dred trekk setin klakervin."

Translator: "Someone took my clothes."

First person: "Moo?"

Translator: "Why?"

Third person: "Sher trekk klakervin bettlever dagin."

Translator: "Because the clothes didn't belong to me."

You get the idea. Create a story using the Translation Game, and see how long you can keep it going. Have fun making up your gibberish language on the spot!

P.S. Lemonade goes great with this game.